Parellelism
by Konstantya
Summary: Age isn’t measured in years, anyway. Reno and Tifa. Maybe a very mild RenoxTifa, if you care to see it.


**General Note:** I'm only going to reformat my fics so much when this site is the one at fault. So If the formatting is weird (like, say, there _aren't any scene breaks where there should be_), please check out my profile for more info. Thank you.

A/N: Oh, Tifa, I just can't quit you. And can't quit using the present tense with you, apparently. And for some reason I just love throwing Reno your way. I think it's all the delightful hostility that does it for me. (Original game canon, in case you aren't familiar with how I do things.)

Obligatory (but ultimately pointless) CYA: I don't own it

* * *

.

**Parallelism  
**

.

The bar is much like any other, save for the broken-down pinball machine near the corner. Dark, loud, acrid—and an aisle of sorts opens to him as he makes his way to the bar. He sits, casts a look over his shoulder at the other patrons, and the noise level reluctantly rises to what it once was.

"Whiskey and water, kid," he says to the bartender. She gives him a look, all wary brown eyes and a firm mouth, but nods at the order and goes to work. Her movements are graceful and sure, the tone of her arm muscles suggesting she rarely needs to rely on the dark giant of a bouncer, but her face is young. Probably too young to be serving alcohol, but Reno isn't one to let details distract him from the bigger picture: She is the bartender, thus she will provide him with a drink.

Legal age doesn't mean much below the plate, anyway. He isn't even sure there _are_ laws that regulate those sorts of things down here.

Reno taps a cigarette out of a crumpled pack as she sets his drink down. "Thanks, kid. How much?"

"Six," she says, and even her voice is that of a girl's.

He throws some gil notes down. She takes the money, hesitates briefly, then spits it out. "I'm not a kid."

The tip of a match flares to life, casting sharp yellow shadows on the both of them before the flame dies in the smoke of the bar. Everything is harsh and dirty in Midgar, from concrete to conversations. Reno inhales a lungful of cancer and casts a cursory glance over the curves of her body. As much as her mini-skirt wants to suggest maturity, he's still skeptical. "Okay, how old are you?"

Her chin lifts a little. "Seventeen."

"Shit," he mutters around his cigarette.

Defense trickles into her eyes. "Well how old are _you?"_ she demands.

He gives her a droll look. "Twenty-four."

"That's not so much older."

"Depends on how you measure age, kid."

She looks at him with eyes that harbor hard shadows and lost innocence, then leaves him to tend to other customers. Reno smirks without humor and without sympathy. Everyone in Midgar is old, no matter what their age.

A few minutes later sees her in front of him again as she fills a drink order. "You shouldn't smoke. It's bad for your health," she says, like some mother or doctor, and it makes him chuckle wryly because he's far beyond the help of either.

Reno takes a purposefully long drag. "The way I see it, life in general is bad for your health."

The girl gives him a sideways look as she pops open two beers and slides them expertly down the bar.

-  
-o-  
-

At once:

A red-headed Turk wipes the blood from his mouth.

A brunette bartender wipes up a broken glass of red wine.

-  
-o-  
-

Outside, he lights up a smoke, throws his back against the side of the building, and relishes his much-needed nicotine fix. So far their vacation has consisted of far too many annoyances and far too little relaxation for his taste. The cigarette helps, and as he watches the sky, he finds himself seriously thinking about visiting one of those Wutain massage spas.

An unfortunately familiar figure turns the corner next to him and stutters to a stop. "Why are _you_ here?" she blurts out.

" 'Cause the inn has a no smoking policy," he puffs out around his cigarette. Reno is suddenly in a less-than-great mood and jerks his chin toward her in a nod. "Why are _you_ here?"

She watches him warily, like some little girl who knows she shouldn't be talking to strangers, but pride makes her feet firm. "Just wanted to see a bit more of the city."

"Yeah, well can you go see more of it in the opposite direction? I've seen more than enough of your little group for one day."

She crosses her arms challengingly, widens her stance. "Is that why you so _graciously_ decided to let us go without a fight?"

Reno never thought he would get tired of fighting, physical or otherwise, but with all this Sephiroth and _Avalanche_ business, he finds that he's getting to that point. "I'm trying to relax," he deigns to tell her, the words carrying an edge.

"What, is mass-murdering finally wearing on you?" she shoots back, and he misses neither the grief in her voice nor her fingers curling into fists.

Of course she would bring up Sector-fucking-7, Reno thinks. If it wasn't for bad luck, he wouldn't have any. "Much as you love to think otherwise, that was business, Lockhart—not personal."

"It was personal to _me!"_

He swings his head toward her, the tilt of it dangerous, eyes narrowed in warning. He might be on vacation, but he isn't completely opposed to wracking up some overtime if provoked enough. "Your grief; your problem." He doesn't get what Rude sees in her—besides the body, and with salaries like theirs, bodies like hers are more than easy to come by.

She wears her heart on her sleeve, and gives it voice at all the wrong times. "Your Shin-Ra's given me plenty of both! I suppose you even had something to do with the farce Nibelheim's become—"

Reno throws down his cigarette, unable to enjoy even that simple pleasure in the current company. "And what about the reactor explosions?" he coolly shoots back, leaning down to stare at her. "Workers with wives and children and friends, no doubt."

She halts, stunned, fists half-raised at his proximity, but he's already hurt her more than any physical fight could. Reno straightens, shoves his hands in his pockets, and leans back against the wall. "It's business, Lockhart," he repeats. "We both did what we felt we had to."

She looks away, her hair shielding her face, and an uncomfortable silence falls. Reno reaches for another cigarette, finds the pack empty, and sneers at his bad luck.

Her voice is quiet when she finally speaks again, her gloved hands wrapped around her arms. "You used to call me 'kid.' "

His voice is curt. "You're not a kid anymore."

Her arms cross. Another slight lift of her chin and she meets his eyes again. She has a strong jaw line, he notices. Strong enough to almost qualify as masculine, though her other features off-set it and tilt her toward beautiful. "I wasn't one back then."

He shrugs in a vague response, the point rolling off his shoulders like he's trained so many things to do. "Maybe."

She pauses. "And what about you?"

"What _about_ me?" He's itching for another cigarette. Or a drink.

"How old are you now?" There's something under her voice, something sorrowful and searching, despite herself.

Reno pushes off the wall and doesn't look at her as he leaves. "Too old."

She glares at his back as he languidly retreats, and the cigarette in the grass burns to ash.

-  
-o-  
-

At once:

A red-headed Turk waits for his last two remaining co-workers. They moved in together after the Meteor Crisis.

A brunette bartender waits for her last remaining childhood friend. They moved in together after the Meteor Crisis.

-  
-o-  
-

It's raining when he ducks into the bar. Truth be told, he doesn't mind rain, doesn't mind walking in it, doesn't mind being wet, even—but he _does_ mind when he can't get his cigarette to light because of soggy tobacco.

He digs around for one that's mostly dry, and leans back against the door with a smoky sigh of relief when the end glows orange.

"What do _you_ want?" The voice comes, sharp and familiar, and in an instant, Reno thinks that he should really start paying attention to the names of bars rather than just their hours of operation.

He shrugs his damp jacket straight, feigning apathy. " 'S raining," he simply says.

"So?"

"So it's hard to smoke in the rain," he elaborates irritably. The place is devoid of customers, which isn't too surprising for a bar on a rainy, early afternoon, but it certainly makes things more difficult, neither having a good excuse to ignore the other. Still, Reno sees the upside of it all: He's in a bar, and despite everything, from what he remembers, she _is_ a good bartender.

He takes a seat on a stool. "Since I'm here, gimme a whiskey and water."

Her step hesitates, almost like she wants to ask a question, but instead she continues, silently making the drink. She resists the urge to slam it down in front of him or throw it on his shirt, and instead wipes up imaginary spills behind the counter. Reno downs a third of his drink and manages to feel a bit better about the whole situation, though he wishes the self-righteous ex-terrorist would stop surreptitiously watching him as if he's about to go for the cash register.

The ringing of a phone cuts through the air, and she goes to the corner to answer it. The girl on the other line is loud enough that even Reno can hear her voice, and he manages to pick up more than a couple words of the conversation.

She laughs quietly into the receiver and says, "Thank you, Yuffie," and Reno frowns disdainfully around his cigarette at the mention of the shrill, hyper girl.

The ninja brat goes uncharacteristically quiet on the phone, and he only hears the response: "No, no, he hasn't… But it's okay. Really." She smiles as if to add some authenticity to her voice, but Reno never saw worse bullshitting in his entire life. A few more moments and a few more brief exchanges, and the phone is hung up.

"Your birthday?"

She glares at him for eavesdropping, but grudgingly, she answers. "I'm twenty-three today."

"Heh. Better than being thirty today." She looks at him, but Reno just watches the smoke dissipate in front of him.

The emptiness of the bar is deafening. They haven't had an excuse to try and kill each other in over two years, and the fragile peace is surreal.

"…So where's Rude?"

"Working. Where's Strife?"

She freezes, doesn't look at him, doesn't answer.

"…Not here, at any rate," he finally says for her. She still doesn't respond, but busies herself with pretending to clean. Reno doesn't particularly care, and watches her for a time. Her hair covers most of her face, and she resolutely keeps her eyes on inanimate objects.

Minutes pass. His cigarette becomes a stub in an ashtray.

"So what's _your_ favorite drink?"

She stops, surprised, either because she didn't expect the question from him, or because it's strange to hear drink queries coming from the other side of the bar. "Vodka and cranberry," she hears herself say.

Reno thoughtfully swirls the ice in the rest of his alcohol. "I'll have one of those, too."

She mixes it, pours it over ice, sets it down in front of him, but before she can let go of it, he catches her fingers around the glass. Her whole body tenses at the contact, seemingly torn between simply pulling away or punching him.

"Just relax," he dryly tells her. Reluctantly, warily, she lets him maneuver her arm, raising the drink in front of her. He picks up the remains of his own, and he can practically see the gears in her head grind to a confused halt.

"But you said you—"

"I lied."

Old defense flares in her eyes. "Why should I have expected anything different from you?" she demands.

"Bottom line is you shouldn't have." He finally drops his hand from hers.

"Happy birthday, Lockhart." She blinks. Their glasses _clink_ together.

"Happy birthday," she says.

-  
-o-  
-

At once:

A red-headed Turk looks at a woman.

A brunette bartender looks back.

.

.

.

* * *

A/N: Rest assured (all three of you that were maybe worried), I haven't forsaken FFVII for other fandoms. Not entirely, at least. But sometimes you just gotta mix it up.


End file.
